708 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. xix. 



which contains considerably more of the harder precious stone 

 layer than the original sandy strata, or the rock from which they 

 originated. Where this natural washing ends, the gem collector 

 begins. He searches for a suitable valley, digs down a greater 

 or less depth from the surface to the layer of clay mixed with 

 coarse sand resting on the rock, which experience has taught 

 him to contain gems.^ At the washings which I saw, the 

 clayey gravel was taken out of this layer and laid by the side of 

 the hole until three or four cubic metres of it were collected. 

 It was then carried, in shallow, bowl-formed baskets from half 

 a metre to a metre in diameter, to a neighbouring river, where 

 it was washed until all the clay was carried away from the sand. 

 The gems were then picked out, a person with a glance of 

 the eye examining the wet surface of the sand and collecting 

 whatever had more or less appearance of a precious stone. He 

 then skimmed away with the palm of the hand the upper stratum 

 of sand, and went on in the same way with that below it until 

 the whole mass was examined. The certainty with which he 

 judged in a moment whether there was anything of value among 

 the many thousand grains of sand was wonderful. I endeavoured 

 in a very considerable heap of the gravel thus hastily examined, 

 to find a single small piece of precious stone which had escaped 

 the glance of the examiner, but without success. 



The yield is very variable, sometimes abundant, sometimes 

 very small, and though precious stones found in Oeylon are 

 yearly sold for large sums, the industry on the whole is 

 unprofitable, although now and then a favourite of fortune has 

 been enriched by it. The English authorities, therefore, with 

 full justification, consider it demoralising and unfavourable to 

 the development of the otherwise abundant natural resources 

 of the region. For the numerous loose population devotes itself 

 rather to the easy search for precious stones, which is as exciting 



1 Emerson Tennent says on the subject : — The gem collectors penetrate 

 through the recent strata of gravel to the depth of from ten to twenty 

 feet in order to reach a lower depqsit, distinguished by the name of Nellan, 

 in which the objects of their search are found. This is of so early a 

 formation that it underlies the present beds of rivers, and is generally 

 separated from them or from the superincumbent gravel by a hard crust 

 (called Kadua), a few inches in thickness, and so consolidated as to have 

 somewliat the appearance of laterite or sun-burnt brick. The nellan is for 

 the most part horizontal, but occasionally it is raised into an incline as it 

 approaches the base of the hills. It appears to have been deposited pre- 

 vious to the eruption of the basalt, on which in some places it reclines, 

 and to have undergone some alteration from the contact. It consists of 

 water-worn pebbles firmly imbedded in clay, and occasionally there occur 

 large lumps of granite and gneiss, in the hollows under which, as well as 

 in '' pockets " in the clay (which from their shape the natives denominate 

 " elephants' footsteps "), gems are frequently found in groups, as if washed 

 in by the current. (E. Tennent, Ceylon. London, 1860, i. p. 34.) 



